Interesting take, the rail makes it tough on Ricardo. If he try\'s to run with Bluegrass Flag on the inside he\'ll probably get cooked or if he sits pocketed up he\'ll have to hope to get pace pressure.

R7: I thought CB & TAP horses were worth taking a shot against with #8 Sal the Turtle, made a wide middle move into fast pace on a day you wanted to be on the rail last time. 3rd place finisher from that race came back to run 2nd in the Bay Shore on a questionable rail. #10 Pat on the Back was a little interesting on the cutback and should get a ton of pace.

R8: Absolute war, #3 Eye Love Lulu chased a fast pace on a dead inside last time and was best on the wire over #8 Weekend Hideaway who was with the track but didn\'t have a dandy trip either breaking the race open with a 4w mid-move. #5 Diversify MOTO and my other A, many long-shot plodders with chance that I threw in as backups.

R9: Another spread race in a showdown between NY\'s favorite turf milers. #3 Get Jets has a strong finish if they go at it up front (not sure what Jose is going to do with King Kreesa since she needs the lead, not as fast as Macagone). 1/2/3/8/10

R10: One longshot i\'ll mention is #4 Tiznow\'s Smile coming off a better than looked effort last time, shuffled back to nearly last down the back stretch and had to come 6w turning for home behind a crawling pace. Charlie means business when his horses work fast in the A.M. (see Final Chapter in the Affirmed Success on opening day). He paired his 2yo top off the layoff and i\'m hoping for an explosion 2nd off the bench. Using all of 1/3/4 and a little 7.

> If they are using bias that way (other horses came
> back to run 7 points higher), they might as well
> throw darts when they handicap.

I think you would be surprised.  


>
> First, the paths are always changing as the
> moisture changes and as the maintenance crew
> performs work on it. The \"bias\" is always
> changing.  Tracks will go from slow to fast or
> fast to slow throughout the day, sometimes race to
> race.  The same would apply to paths.

With the exception of rain storm, a drying out surface or an ambitious track maintenance crew trying to fix the track, paths are easily calculated. Besides, don\'t these same dilemma\'s face figure-makers? are \"figures\" useless?



> Second, every horse has a different pattern. If a
> horse is in a dead or hot path than you have a
> horse that ran on a completely different track
> speed variant than the rest of the field, likely
> completely altering his pattern.  It could change
> his last race from a Top to an Off or vice versa.

I agree that some paths are better than others on certain days, trying to discern bias through pattern reading is for astrologists, not handicappers.


> Third, they are using a sample from only a handful
> of horses.  How many horses actually ran on the
> rail?  4? 5?  What condition were they in that
> day?  What condition were they in the next race?
> You don\'t have a chance of knowing any of this if
> you don\'t use form cycles.

Well I agree in this example 5 horses isn\'t much of a data point you can also use previous races to estimate. Still don\'t understand what condition a horse is racing in has to do with form cycles or bias.



>
> If one isn\'t going to use pattern context then why
> use the horse\'s next start to judge how much a
> bias affected a horse?  Why not just use the
> previous start before the biased race?
>
> This is a very poor method to use a bias. The ones
> who use this are trying to make scientific
> adjustments to a speed figure and it\'s just not
> possible using the data at hand.

It\'s called using art and science to come up with your best guess, isn\'t that what handicapping is? Don\'t figure makes do the EXACT same thing when determining a variant for a card?

belmont3 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> How does one practically determine and/or quantify
> the incline/decline effect of a bias?
>
> If the incline/decline # is determined based on
> future efforts, would the inherent advantage be
> lost?
.
>
> Or does one (in theory) look at the performance
> numbers of all entrants that ran on that dead rail
> versus their prior efforts and attempt to
> \'predict\' the probable incline/decline effect?


I remember Myakka River well . I think it\'s important to rate how strong you thought the bias was first, i.e: GR -- (slightest advantage to rail) GR ++ (strongest advantage to rail, Feb. 16th on the inner at Aqueduct was one of the strongest I\'ve ever seen.) against how much the horses with/against the bias figures inclined/declined in the current race.

That, combined with the extra data point of when they run back should give you a pretty clear understanding on how strong the bias was on that day.

sekrah Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If one is a 100% convinced that a bias existed,
> you still need to use the race (adjusted) in the
> context of the pattern, and most people who use a
> perceived bias do not do that.  They automatically
> dismiss or promote a horse in their next race.  A
> horse that was affected positively by a bias might
> make his pattern for the next race either stronger
> or weaker.  Same if they were negatively
> affected.

People automatically dismiss or promote a horse in their next race because bias has nothing to do with subjectively reading a form pattern. People who inheret bias as a study calculate the average speed figure incline/decline in relation to the bias. Example: Horse A was on a dead rail and horses on the dead rail from that day have come back to run an average of 7 points higher.

Estimate on the DePaz horse?

Do you guys play chalk heavy tickets using ABC\'s or tend to leave those combos out? I.E. 3 or more favorites in P5, 2 or more favorites in P4.

Old handicapping books suggest trying to beat more than half the favorites out of a given sequence but I have heard of bettors smashing $50 P4\'s with heavy chalk and having good success.

Would be interesting to see what P5 sequences produce the highest \"overlays\" over time and which method would be more viable.

Rakes lowest I\'ve seen in online contest sites. the $600 game only has 6% rake with multi entry buy in.

You need to be connected to a Wi-Fi spot to use the exchange, they can track where you are through it and pull the plug if you aren\'t in NJ.

Drf article: "I thought this was the bet of the day," trainer Jorge Navarro said.

Azteca cost me many rubberbands yesterday with the Forevamo P5 x2.. I\'m sure JN got his money\'s worth

miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TG ground loss was reviewed in depth some time
> ago, found to be generally very accurate.


Any idea on what the thread was called? Just for my own curiosity..

Hello everybody, I\'ve been a long time TG user and forum lurker. Something I always wondered is if Trakus ground loss can be more easily quantified and more efficient than the paths off rail ground loss calculations.

I understand the torque of the turns are different at each track and say ground loss on the AQU inner is more significant than the main at Belmont, also something like this would require a large data set and a whole new formula. Another hurdle would be that not every track has Trakus data.

Understanding the challenges, was curious if this idea has ever been tossed around among sheet figure makers. Just asking out of curiosity, already have much respect for the accuracy of the #\'s.